Pickford, Mary

Written by Linda Kirkpatrick on Sunday, June 30 2013.

Mary Pickford, America's Sweetheart

(1892 - 1979)

Born in Toronto as Gladys Marie Smith, she performed on stage at an early age, being noticed at age seven, acting in numerous melodramas. Throughout the early part of the century, she was considered to be the most famous woman in the world and to this day one of the most important performers and producers in Hollywood's silent film industry.

She became a US citizen in 1920, maintaining dual citizenship.

She starred in 52 features throughout her career, retiring in 1933 when talkies essentially put silent-movie stars out of business. In 1929 she won an Oscar for "Coquette." and in 1976 won an Honorary Award from the Academy for a lifetime of achievements.

During World War I she helped to promote the sale of Liberty Bonds and conceived the Motion Picture Relief Fund to help actors who'd fallen on hard times.

She – along with Charlie Chaplin, DW Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks – co-founded United Artists.

She and Douglas Fairbanks spent a considerable amount of time in Evergreen, often seen at the Troutdale-in-the-Pines hotel on Upper Bear Creek Road. Fairbanks, originally from Denver, was familiar with the area. Pickford owned a cabin on Mountain Parks Road (labeled as "Gertrude" on early maps) in the Mountain Parks subdivision likely prior to the 1920s and into the 1920s; it was an area predominantly occupied by people who pitched tents or rented/owned small summer cabins. Sometime in the 1930s Pickford's cabin became a neighborhood grocery store and is at this time (2013) the residence of Marion and Errol Beauchamp, who purchased the property in 1993. Fairbanks at one time rented the big white house by the lake, so Pickford would have spent time there as well.